


Soft Tread

by gonfalonier



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 12:38:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5291144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonfalonier/pseuds/gonfalonier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tall tales, good wine, and a tour of Mount Vernon wildlife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soft Tread

Mount Vernon has its manicured lawns, its smooth bowling green and hedge maze, the areas where the staff mills about. (Alexander tries not to think about whether the staff is paid. He doesn’t ask. He won’t.) Further out, northeast toward the water, there’s more shade, more privacy. Alexander Hamilton and his commander are there in a clearing, a blanket spread between them. Alexander is on his back, blinking slowly in the sunlight. Washington sits upright, his knees bent and arms folded on them. Eyes closed, Alexander hears the tread of an animal at the edge of the spot. He doesn’t know animals, not the way he knows other things. He isn’t a tracker. He asks lazily, “What do you see?”

“It’s a doe,” George answers. “A doe and her fawn.”

“Do you know deer well, sir?”

George hums out a laugh and answers, “Well enough to know I like venison stew. No, Alexander, I’m not a man of nature. I wouldn’t know a songbird from a turkey.”

“You live here,” Hamilton argues. He’s up on his side now, propped on an elbow. He feels keen. The deer have moved on. “You live among all this wildlife. You don’t know any of it?”

Washington’s gaze is sharp, but his tone is patient. He says, “I’ve learned enough from my groundskeepers.” He twists to place a hand on the blanket and meet Alexander’s eyes straight-on. “What has you so interested?”

But Alexander rolls onto his back again. He folds his hands behind his head and lets his knuckles dig into the soft summer dirt. He gazes up at the sky, but he can still sense George’s eyes on him, heating him up. “I don’t like to learn that there’s something you don’t know, sir. That’s all. The breadth of your experience has sometimes made me feel like a child.”

He hears Washington smile. He feels it over the distance. George says, “I never mean to belittle you. You’re not a child.”

Hamilton knows he’s not a child, and he knows that’s not how the general sees him. George doesn’t touch him the way one should touch a child.

On the blanket between them there are still some crusts of bread, the cores of their apples, a cheese rind, a purple spot where George spilled his wine. All proof in Alexander’s mind that they’ve spent the afternoon as equals. Men, together.

“Anyway,” George continues, “if there is another war, it won’t be fought with deer and mice. I think we’ll both be well equipped.” There’s a rustle of grass, and when Hamilton turns his head to follow it he sees the general gathering up the picnic blanket at the corners to clear the space. He ties up the bundle and sets it away and then he’s at Alexander’s side. Hamilton sits up, brushes off his dirty knuckles with his palm, and hugs his knees to his chest. He follows George’s gaze to the edge of the field, off in the direction of the lapping waves of the Potomac. They’ve spent time out there together, he and the general, talking and drinking and being silent. Alexander has rowed them out into the water at night to watch the stars. He’s fantasized more than once about watching George swim. Nude, free from care; proud, brown chest breaking the surface of the water; lazy dips and strokes until he’s had enough and drags himself back to shore to bake dry in the sun. Here in the clearing, Alexander closes his eyes and breathes out a quiet groan.

He hears Washington shift beside him and then a hand is on his cheek to turn him, and then he’s tilting his head to accommodate warm lips. George exhales into the kiss and Alexander feels himself becoming a basin for all of his commander’s burdens. He feels his cheeks glow under the attention.

The kiss breaks and both men smile. Hamilton takes a breath and says, “On the ship to New York, when I was young, when I was coming here, there was a man on board with a trained mouse.” Washington’s brows furrow, but his lips stay curved, curious, so Alexander continues: “It’s true. He kept the mouse in his breast pocket and at night he would send it off to steal bread and meat from the larder and bring it back to him. Not back to us, back to him, he didn’t share, even though we all knew about the mouse and we never breathed a word.”

George asks, laughing, “What did he call it? The mouse. Did it have a name?”

“Yes.” Alexander can’t suppress his grin. “Yes, he called it King John.”

“King John the mouse.”

“The bread-stealing mouse.”

They’re both laughing now. Washington’s shoulders are shaking, his head is down, and then he turns and Hamilton’s breath stops in his throat at the sight of his commander’s full, loose smile. Washington says, “What became of King John? Did he survive the journey.”

Alexander collects himself. He rubs his own cheek for a moment and then replies, “I didn’t see the evidence myself, but I understand he came to a grisly end.”

“Oh?”

“Mm. I heard one night King John got curious and chewed into a flask of wine, drank from it, and -- drunk -- found his way into a barrel of gunpowder.”

“Gunpowder.”

“Yes, which he ate, thinking it was seeds. And on the way back to his master, he stumbled, fell, and --”

“Alexander --”

“And he exploded.”

The air is still and clear and Washington’s bark of laughter rings through the field. Hamilton hears an animal scurry up a tree in the distance. A bird flushes up from a patch of tall grass. Washington catches his breath, shakes his head, and says, “If this is one of your tales, Alexander, please don’t tell me. This is one I want to keep.”

“Then keep it, sir.”

It’s mostly lies, that story, but it isn’t hurting anyone, not even a mouse. George and Alexander kiss again, and Alexander curls his fingers around the back of Washington’s neck. They touch each other quietly. When this kiss breaks, Hamilton looks down at their intertwined hands, the differing shades. George says, “Young man, you need more time in the sun.”

Alexander swallows and looks away. More to himself than to the general he replies, “Not so. I am too much in it.”

George shakes his head and brings their joined hands up to lift Alexander’s chin for another kiss. This one they both sigh into. They unclasp their hands and embrace. Alexander keeps his eyes shut tight. Their clothes rustle in the stillness. Hamilton wishes they could shed them.

His eyes are still closed when the kiss ends again. He doesn’t flinch when Washington’s hand caresses his face, when his thumb strokes over his cheek and then his eyebrow. George says, low, “Stay for dinner.” And then, lower, “I’d enjoy having you.”

Alexander breathes in slowly and, after summoning the courage, opens his eyes and nods. “Yes, sir.”

They part and stand. They gather themselves and the blanket. George reaches into the bundle and finds a bread crust, which he drops to the ground, and then throws Hamilton an easy smile. “For King John,” he says.

The walk back to the manor is silent, and comfortably so. When they reach the lawn, Alexander falls behind a few steps and self-consciously adjusts his jacket and hair, puts everything in place. Washington doesn’t even seem to notice when Alexander trots to catch back up. They return composed and serious. Two men, for all the world, burdened by the affairs of state.


End file.
